Archaeologists have meanwhile learned a lot about the elite of Celtic society, especially after the discovery of ruler's tombs such as on the Glauberg, which were equipped with valuable grave goods for the deceased.

For example, high-ranking officers wore fine jewelry, evidently liked to drink mead, and the equipment of a respected warrior included weapons with stately iron swords.

On the other hand, comparatively little has survived from the life of the craftsmen and farmers, apart from tools, for example.

There are still many unanswered questions about how the so-called simple people dressed and fed themselves, what their settlements might have looked like.

Wolfram Ahlers

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for central Hesse and the Wetterau.

  • Follow I follow

So it was a stroke of luck for the archaeologists when a few years ago near the Höchst district of Altenstadt, not far from the Faith Hill, a remarkable number of relics were discovered and recovered that could be assigned to an Iron Age settlement.

In a pit, the excavation team found a whole group of ceramic vessels that were obviously used for storage.

These vessels are now being presented to the public for the first time in the Keltenwelt am Glauberg exhibition for the Hessian Year of Archaeology, which can be seen from mid-March.

Saline from the time before Christ

According to what is known so far, Iron Age settlements were probably groups of a few residential and farm buildings.

Nearby their dwellings, the residents dug storage pits in which they stored grain and other food in vessels.

In Höchst near Altenstadt, several such pits were uncovered, which were up to two meters deep.

Archaeologists have discovered that the so-called truncated cone pits functioned in a similar way to refrigerators when they were sealed airtight.

Grain and seeds could be easily stored and preserved at a depth of around two meters, cooled by the soil.

Salt was particularly suitable for preserving and also popular for the preparation of food.

This prompted the Celts to operate a salt works at considerable expense in the area of ​​today's Bad Nauheim, which archaeologists count among the largest prehistoric salt production facilities due to the many finds over a large area.

The Archeology Year exhibition also deals with this aspect of Celtic history.

The Nauheim Saline can be dated between the third and first centuries BC.

The full dimensions of this complex were revealed in the 1990s, when archaeologists were given the opportunity to carry out large-scale investigations due to a large construction project on the outskirts of the city centre.

What they found amazed the experts: On the one hand, the dimensions were impressive, because the salt works stretched over a length of almost one kilometer.

The production processes could also be reconstructed fairly accurately on the basis of the many relics.

The brine, with a salt content of two to four percent, was collected in a basin made of massive planks at the outlet of the spring.

From there, the mineral-rich water was channeled through specially constructed channels into large basins, in which the water evaporated under the sun's rays, and the salt content increased as a result.

In a further step, the brine enriched in this way reached the boiling plants, ovens made of clay, via supply lines.

There the Celtic salt workers filled the brine into vessels and placed them in the ovens.

The embers heated the brine, the remaining water evaporated and what remained were blocks of salt.

Finally, the boiling pots were opened and the lumps of salt were taken out.